In Through The Out Door

Anti-Federalism rears its ugly head with Rep. Sessions’s bill: The bill would
ban municipal networks where any competitive service existed in the municipal
area of governance. A grandfather clause allows existing services to proceed.
The language of the “Preserving Innovation in Telecom Act of 2005″ is so
hilariously broad and ill-defined that it could kill all kinds of projects that
the incumbent carriers this is meant to protect would support or are involved in
deploying. It has such a broad grandfather clause that it could allow massive
projects to continue if even a tiny portion of the service was in use. I doubt
it will go anywhere because in its current form, it’s a shotgun full of
buckshot, not a surgical weapon. A broad consortium of businesses and public
policy groups will certainly try to get it killed. I doubt it will get many
supporters because of its broad sweep. For instance, this bill would kill all
future airport Wi-Fi that’s not already built out because government entities
would be unable to “provide” services if Wi-Fi were operating anywhere else in
the airport authority’s municipality’s domain. It’s pretty easy to read that
interpretation….


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